Category: Quick Tips

Technology has become, not only our means of communications verbally: but now it has become the life line that keeps our schedules, important dates, and important information. What is more important is keeping this information safe from hackers. Like all things, they should be used responsibly. In order to keep your information safe, and your family safe, take these precautions. Do your research on a device that you are looking into buying. Seven ways you can keep your information safe while using your device.

1. Enable Encryption: on every device you own make sure the Encryption is turned on, and use the security controls. A lot of times this step is not taken serious enough.

2. Use Authentication. This is your own personal password for your device. Remember to use a phrase, numbers upper case letters. Also important to make sure it is a different password from all other websites, or devices.

3. Choose your 3rd party applications: Control any 3rd party apps. Apps are one way you can allow hackers into your device. Be careful, make sure you read all the information before adding, including the providers privacy policy. If privacy policy is unclear or non existent for an application, either do not install this application or provide minimum required permissions (below) to this application.

4. 3rd party applications permissions: Be very selective is providing minimum required access to third party applications. Access to your contacts, you location, calendars, photos and many other sensitive data can be selectively provided to your application. Make sure you provide what is most needed and disable any access that you provided unintentionally or for temporary purposes. It is not a bad idea to review your applications and delete/uninstall applications that you needed for a short time (such a conference application or a hotel application that you used while overseas).

5. Keep a clean device: Regularly clean your browser cache, cookies, session data and also regularly remove applications, files, certificates that are stored on your device. This will be a good way to get rid of information that is on your device that can possibly be misused or abused by either software or by someone who physically manages to steal your device.

6. Backups and testing your backups: Backup your phone and mobile device with a reliable software and test your backups for a safe restore. If you see any strange behavior with your mobile device, attempt to rollback to the best backup you have and thus test your backup for reliable restoration.

7. Lost Cell Phone service: If your provider has an option for “Lost Cell Phone” service, choose this plan. Be well aware of the procedure for reporting your lost cell phone. If you loose your cell phone while traveling international, ensure you either have “Remote / Self Wipe” capability or the ability to lock down your device in case it is reported lost of stolen. Many service providers and device providers have their own software / plans for this type of service.

Mobile devices are not a bad thing to have. They help up schedule our days, keep important dates, and get information faster to employees. But like anything else, they should be used responsibly.

PSMail Quicktips: Mobile technology has become far more than just a convenient way to talk with one another: it has become our most indispensible tool. With it we organize our schedules, store our entertainment, manage our finances, connect with our social network, and…well, nearly everything we do can have some connection to mobile technology.

Which is all the more reason to be concerned about hackers and other nefarious threats. Here are seven way you can keep your information safe while using your device.

PSMail Quicktip: Social media security While social media sites like facebook, twitter, and myspace are great for communicating with friends and family, a lot of personal information – like your location, recent travel, vacation plans, and family changes – can be collected from profiles and public posts. Here’s some tips to protect your identity while using social media:

1. Keep your profile privacy settings high so that only friends and trusted connections can have access.

1. Don’t install any free software or code onto your phone without reviewing it carefully. Lots of free software contains malicious code that can install malware on your SIM card and be used to intercept data and voice calls.

PSMail Quicktip: Emails themselves can carry malicious code. Whereas in the past it was only an attachment that could infect your computer, now emails can be just as dangerous because they are coded like webpages to display great images and content in your email. To protect yourself, set your email client to TEXT only and always check “text only” when you subscribe to any email service. Also, continue to virus scan all attachments before opening them.

PSMail Quick Tip: Did you know that the header of an email message you compose can contain private information such as your computer’s location, name, operating system, and even the current patch level?

PSMail user tip: If you expect an email from someone but are concerend it may be interpreted as SPAM, you can ensure receipt by adding them to your whitelist. Or you can just send an empty email to that person, and their email will be added to your autowhitelist automatically.

PSMail Quick Tip: One type of hacker attack uses programs that roam the Internet searching for vulnerable computers to exploit. The programs send a piece of information to the IP address of a computer to see if it “replies.” Unprotected computers reply to the hacker program, letting it know it has a potential target. It’s like a criminal calling to see if you are home before trying to break in.

PSMail Quick Tip: When you see a certificate warning from your browser saying that a certificate is invalid or not signed by a trusted authority, don’t ignore this important warning. This could be a sign of a man-in-the-middle attack or some other form of unwanted intrusion. Decline to go further and contact the website administrator.